


Conversations of a Condemned Species

by Pseudthisyafucks (collettephinz)



Category: Youtube - RPF
Genre: Assumptions, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Rooftop Conversations, Zombie Apocalypse, jack isn't actually an asshole, offscreen mentioned minor character death, speculations, supportive end of the world friends, we just don't get to hear his side of the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:14:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collettephinz/pseuds/Pseudthisyafucks
Summary: Atop a roof in zombie-infested LA, Ian learns about what Felix left behind in England.





	Conversations of a Condemned Species

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in 30 mins i'll bet it shows
> 
> i dunno Ian and Felix just seem like a stellar friendship to me and i'd love to do more of it
> 
> if i do write more of this, it would show some of Jack's POV and how Felix ain't necessarily correct with his assumptions

“Still freaks me out that the kid who gets called a school shooter actually knows how to fucking shoot good.”

Ian rolled his eyes as he peered down the scope, and found himself unable to pass up the chance to yet again correct Felix’s mediocre English. “First off, it would be ‘shoot well,’ since ‘good’ really doesn’t belong at the end of that sentence. Neither does ‘well,’ really. You’re better off leaving it at ‘knows how to fucking shoot,’ because being good at it, or something better, is implied by saying that I know how.” He pulled back the bolt, let the empty cartridge fall out, then fired another shot down the street. A stumbling zombie’s head exploded into a mess of rotting brain matter and skull.

“Second, I only got called the school shooter kid because I’m fucking white and I’m skinny. You’re just as likely to be a school shooter with that criteria.”

Felix snorted. “Swedes don’t shoot up schools.”

“You know, I think you’re right about that one these days.” Ian reloaded, then trained his eye down the scope. He held his breath, then let it out in one slow go before pulling the trigger again and felling another. He heard the sudden crack of Felix’s handgun but didn’t flinch. He’d probably taken out some wanderer that had made it up the stairs after them.

“Glad to see your sense of humor still lives. You sure you’re good to do this?” Felix asked. “You gotta have 20-20 vision or something, I think, and those glasses aren’t supporting your argument that you’d be better at this than me.” Felix had slowly-failing contacts and Ian had never let him shoot the rifle before, but whatever. His Swedish accent was peeking through, mulling up his words like he had something in his mouth as he talked. A small comfort to Ian, a constant reminder of humanity, though in a illogically roundabout way. Why was an accent a reminder of humanity, beyond simple human variation? Ian simply pursed his lips and tightened his finger around the trigger. Down went another.

A low noise of approval sounded behind him. “Nice shot.”

“Thanks.”

“You miss her?”

Ian started at the question. He knew exactly who the “her” in question was. Ian swallowed hard, unable to completely trust his own voice, before speaking. “Of course.”

A low hum.

“I had someone too, you know.”

“Yeah, Marzia.” Ian reloaded. “Everyone knew that.”

“Not Marzia.”

Ian twisted on his stomach to look at his companion. Felix was staring down the wall he was sitting on the edge of, looking into the alleyway beneath him. Ian could barely remember how they’d been thrown together in this hellhole. He still didn’t even know how Felix had ended up in LA before the apocalypse had hit and everything had gone to shit. But it wasn’t like they hadn’t known each other beforehand, so working together hadn’t been that much of a hitch. He and Felix were a lot alike in the sense that they both knew how to take shit seriously when it was necessary. They’d been fighting their way through the undead for months now, avoiding the burgeoning structures of civilization because they’d seen enough zombie pop culture in their lifetimes to know that humans would always fuck it up.

Ian had thought he’d known Felix pretty well before everything had gone to shit, too, but he guessed he’d been wrong. Everyone knew the golden couple of YouTube, the crowning achievement of relationships, and the neon example that people plastered “GOALS” over in bright glitter with every chance they had. Ian had just assumed that Felix had come to LA with his girl and he’d seen her die. It wasn’t like they’d talked about who they’d lost in all of this. Felix and Ian had just worked silently side by side to stay alive and left words to the bare basics. The only conversations they had were plastic and static. That wasn’t to say that Ian wasn’t curious, though. He’d wondered if Felix was hanging on to anyone he’d left back in England.

“Did you and Marzia break up?”

Felix shrugged. He was still watching below. “Kinda. We really just fell in love with other people.”

Ian honestly couldn’t picture that happening. Falling out of love after over six years of loyal companionship didn’t bode well for your Disney fairytale romances. “Was it a friendly thing? I thought you came here with her.”

“I did come here with her,” Felix affirmed. “We were still friends. We’d always wanted to see Alcatraz and we’d always said we would do it together. Falling out of love didn’t mean we lost what we had. It was mutual. She was like my sister when she…”

When she died. Felix didn’t need to say it. “He/She died” was the end of every conversation they had when talking about a person. Parents, siblings, friends, loved ones. Everyone fucking died and Ian was tired of the word. He appreciated Felix’s inability to say it aloud anymore. “Who did you guys break up for?”

Felix twisted his face, making his beard move. Ian had always been a little jealous of his beard. Ian just had this patch mess of pubes on his chin. “It’s weird to say. We never really planned on telling anyone.”

“Is it, like, a gay thing?”

Felix’s eyes went wide, and that was all the answer Ian needed. Weird. He’d meant it as a joke. “Well, at least you can use the correct pronoun when you tell me all about the guy.” Ian turned back to his rifle and trained down the scope. He took out another. They were up here for shits and giggles and nothing else. Their safe house had been overrun two days ago. They were homeless and bored and had more ammo then food. They had nothing else to do but kill and talk.

Felix was quiet. Then, “he was really nice. Kind. He was one of those guys that just built you up higher and higher and never let you fall down. He was super encouraging and great and…” Felix cleared his throat. “I mean, is it weird for you? That it’s a guy? Like, I don’t have to—”

“Dude, I was a fucking meme for being gay,” Ian interrupted. “I don’t give a shit who you fuck.”

“Right.” He could practically hear the unhappiness in Felix’s voice. It wasn’t like it was Ian’s fault for not caring. If anything, Felix should’ve felt lucky that he hadn’t ended up stuck with a giant fucking homophobe for the end of the world. What did Felix expect, the unending and unrelenting support of a parent? Even parents turned away their gay kids. 

“Just keep talking, dude,” Ian prodded, actually feeling a little bad for it now. “I need the noise.”

He heard Felix shift, then sit beside where Ian lay prone on the rooftop. “He was super hot,” Felix said, and Ian actually laughed a little at that. “Like, damn. Hella fine, as they used to say. He had the most gorgeous eyes and the sexiest hands. Like, they were big hands.”

“You know what they say about big hands,” Ian murmured, squinting. He pulled the trigger and took down another, then pulled the trigger again just to waste a bullet and feel the kickback of the rifle. He wondered if this was why people had called it “shooting the breeze.”

“Shut up,” Felix chuckled. “He, he was perfect. I’d never really been into guys before, I’d never really, like, swung that way. My parents thought I had when I was younger, but I was basically straight, so I just… I kinda fell in love with the way he laughed and told stories and chased birds down the beach before I became actually attracted to him. I think that’s why it was so weird. Because I didn’t know I was in love with him until one day I suddenly found myself thinking ‘and he’s hot too.’ Like, it didn’t click until my dick woke up.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda how it works for us guys.” Ian took down another. “So did you two date?”

Felix didn’t answer.

After a moment-too-long, Ian pulled back from the scope and looked to Felix. He didn’t really know what to do when he saw actual tears in the guys’ eyes. Ian was really bad at handling crying people, even more so when it was another dude. “Uh…”

Felix sniffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Fuck, sorry.”

“N-no problem,” Ian stuttered, feeling beyond awkward. He wished he was better at this whole “being human” thing. It kinda sucked that Felix had to be shouldered with a guy who was basically just as dead on the inside as the zombies shuffling across the street. “I mean… I’m guessing you weren’t?”

“We weren’t,” Felix replied, voice stiff. 

“I… I’m sorry, dude.” He didn’t think casual pining was reason enough to cry, though, so Ian pressed. “Did he… Did you tell him?”

Felix nodded.

“Well, shit,” Ian said, at a loss. “I’m guessing that didn’t go well.”

“He had a girlfriend,” Felix told him. His voice was all ragged at the edges, but he stopped crying. Ian was almost grateful. “I should’ve known, really. He’s probably the most viscerally faithful fucking guy on the planet. I should’ve known I never stood a chance. I just…” Felix took in a shaky breath. “It, it sucked. It sucked so fucking much because it wasn’t… He only turned me down because he had a girlfriend and he didn’t want to make her have to go home.”

Ian was starting to catch on. “Only because of that,” he thought aloud. “Meaning, he only turned you down because he had a relationship he couldn’t leave. Not even because he cared about her more than you or something, but just because he didn’t want to have to make her go.”

Felix nodded.

“He was in love with you too.” Ian felt horrible for the guy. “He just didn’t choose you.”

“Yeah,” Felix choked out. “Felt a little like dying, I think. Who knows. Maybe I’ll find out if I was close.” He visibly shuddered. “I don’t know. All I know is that he said that the way I felt for him was too much trouble for it to be a good thing. That we were better off friends or, or less.”

“Jesus.”

Felix laughed, but the sound was broken by the pain in his voice. He shook his head. “You’re really bad at this.” Felix wiped at his eyes again. “My fault. I know we don’t talk about this shit. And it’s the fucking zombie apocalypse, you know? I should be past this, I’ve officially gone through worse than just being rejected. But having Jack look me dead in the eye and tell me that the possibility of us being together was just too much fucking trouble for him to stomach tears me apart like these fucking things do.”

Honestly, Ian wasn’t surprised to hear the name. In the back of his mind, he found it hilarious that Felix had fallen for green-PewDiePie, but he didn’t feel like laughing.

“That wasn’t even the worse of it,” Felix said. “The worst part was when his friends found out. Told me that I was trying to push him, make things hard on him. That he’d already had a stressful year and that he didn’t need my bullshit, that he was better off without me. They were telling me to stop talking to him, to stop being his friend, and while I’m pretty sure it was all behind his back, part of me thought he knew what they were saying and didn’t stop them because he agreed.” A sigh trembled out of Felix. 

“It just sucks,” Felix said. “Because he probably thinks that I wanted him to hurt his girlfriend or something, or he probably thinks that I was just after him for his looks or whatever. That’s what his friends said. That I was just into him because of his face and that I was sick and perverted and just your average, body-hungry man. That I only wanted him for a new kind of sex. And now I can’t even tell him the truth. Because I don’t even know if he’s alive. Marzia and I came here because his friends were becoming too much and she was worried about me. Then that got her killed.” There were tears again. Felix blinked them away furiously. “God. I never should’ve told him. He deserved better than a fuck up like me. His friends…” Another shaky sigh. “His friends were right.”

Ian sat up and faced Felix directly. “You listen here,” he began slowly. “What those assholes did? That was not right, you understand?” He pointed a long finger at Felix and watched the guy rear back like he was expecting Ian to jab him in the eye. “Who gives a fuck who you love as long as you love them for a good reason,” Ian said. “Those fucking jackasses had no right to telly you those things, and Jack-fucking-SepticEye was being stupid in turning you down because, from what you tell me, he loved you more than his relationship. The dude was just a fucking coward who didn’t want to do the hard thing and be happy. And his friends were just a bunch of self righteous jackasses who think they’re better than everyone else, okay? They’re all fucking assholes. You’re here. You’re alive. You’ve earned your survival. That’s more than I can say for any of them.”

Ian lifted the rifle and pushed it into Felix’s chest. He knew Felix had been wanting a go— it was why he’d made the comment about Ian’s eyesight being inadequate in the first place. “Fire some rounds,” he told Felix. “Show me what you can do and forget about those fucking garbage bags of human waste.”

Felix’s face was wiped of emotion, as if he was too shocked to fully comprehend, before he lit up with a slow smile. The tears were still in his eyes, but they were overshadowed by the gratitude that was showcased by his expression. “Thanks, man,” he said, casting his eyes away. “I, uh. I’m glad to know that his friends were dicks. Makes me feel a little better.” The seemed more like a statement to himself than Ian. Felix lied down next to him and looked down the scope. He’d never used the rifle before. Ian had held the weapon to his own pretty tightly. “Am I— am I doing this right?”

Ian nodded shortly and picked up Felix’s handgun, scanning the alleyway for more targets. He wouldn’t tell Felix, but the news of those pricks that JackSepticEye called “friends” pissed him off beyond measure. How could people act like that? How could they look someone in the eye and tell them they were less of a person? A scowl marred his lips, and Ian took out a zombie, shoving three more bullets into its body after it was long past “dead,” and immobile on the ground.

Sometimes, it hurt to believe that there were monsters out there that didn’t necessarily eat flesh.


End file.
